19t to20tonnes in three days

[Quietachiever]

hey breamster`s
Here`s the tally for Bream & Bycatch for those 3days I was wingeing about in early may (7 crates of blakies)from the truckie that took the fish to Perth itgo`s like this``best season ever,usually transport 1.5ton a day after the first good rains but this year 6to7ton on the first,5ton on the second & 7ton on the last day of bream & bycatch ``this is the combined weight of net catches from the Kalgan/King,Oysterharbour over 3days.Wow thats all Licenced/legal pilfering.

[chaser]

That is some serios fish!!!!!!!!
Why is every fisherperson thats out there not jumping up and down together ..and getting these nets and wrapping them around the nerest blackberry bush sprinkiling a little liqid on em and "dropping a match"?............
chaser

[Richo]

what can we do - its bloody legal from all reports, and fisheries make more money from them than us apparently, we can`t even get one pro kicked out of one river. Every netter in every estuary in the country should be hung out to dry in my opinion. Disappointing figures there jamie.

cheers

[MATTY]

a big flush=a big catch and people use the excuse of water/flood conditions causing bream not to breed and reducing populations.
thats because there ain't many left to breed
QA do you know what the breakdown of bycatch was,mulloway,mullet,pink bream ?

The cray industry here uses 20,000 tonnes of bait a year.

Yes - lots of it is imported frozen (can anyone say pilchard virus?) , but a substantial amount is netted from southcoast estuaries as your all finding out.

The good stuff like bream goes to the fishmarkets in Perth, and the rest ends up in a cray pot.

Where else would they get their cray bait from?

There was a research trial to try and replace the imported fish with special baits prepared from chicken processing waste, (I got to test a lot of the baits) however it's a tough ask to manufacture a consistent bait, for around a buck 20 a kilo which is roughly what the industry pays for imported north sea herring...kiwi salmon etc.

The chook based baits I tested, did real well in cold waters (up as far as Lancelin) achieving 110% of the equivalent fish bait, but the further north (warmer water) you went the chook based bait efficacy dropped off to only around 80% of the raw fish.

You could spice the baits up to do better - but the required ingredients (either blue mussels, abalone or oyster) are all so expensive that the baits then become unviable costwise...

So whats the answer?...

Aquaculture bait?

You gotta remember we are talking a $600,000,000.00 (Six Hundred Million Dollar) export industry every year here, at risk if baits not available.

And just twixt you n me - MOST of that bait is imported by G Kailis and co (20 million ofdd bucks a year worth) so theres another big monmey spinner industry just in bait.

So where do we get the bait for these industries if we don;t either net it ourselves or import it.

Clearly OUR recreational angling interests would be best served by outlawing netting, in estuaries, but put yourselves (ourselves) in the Ministers position, how does he keep us happy without totally destroying the entire nations economy let alone the jobs and export earnings of our state from the Lobster Industry?

If the mullet etc arent netted from the estuaries - then what do we use?

Net slimey mackeral offshore? (what will the marlin eat?)

Net Herring off the southcoast?... (there goes the Salmon run)

Whats the answer?.

I guess what I'm trying to say - is - instead of just DohDohDohDohDohing about netting estuaries - maybe we should be suggesting sime 'win/win' solution scenarios for all concerned...

I mean, if WE can't come up with 'acceptable solutions' to put forward ourselves - what chance either Fisheries WA or the Fisheries Minister can do likewise?

So - what are the answers?

Anyone?

Cheers!

[dan_WA]

Trouty,
I hate the idea of netting in estuaries as well - it's like herding sheep/cattle etc through a gate onto a truck - the bream have nowhere to go.
But with respect to the oceanic fisheries (herring + salmon). These fisheries have been operating for the last - say 30+ years, and have always been consistent. The salmon don't really come in after the herring - they are on a spawning run. The herring come after the salmon (the beach fishers target salmon, when they are gone they target the herring) At least with the ocean fisheries the fish have more of a chance to avoid the nets, or with environmental factors such as fluctuating water currents/temperatures like what happenned last year, when pretty much all the beaches East of Albany caught no salmon ('cos they stayed further out from the beaches).
It's a shame that these fish end up as cray bait, but not all of it does; a lot of the salmon is headed/gutted for canning (heads used for craybait). Some of the poorer quality fish does end up as craybait.
Regarding the move away from the chicken based bait, I think it was an industry move to maintain the products image - like the banning of hocks and hides from traps - to prevent animal hairs turning up in lobsters gut/on the dining table. Also to alleviate foreign market concerns about inter-species disease from using terrestrial animals (eg. mad cow, chicken cholera)
The removal of these baits has meant even more fish is being used, and the cray fishos are still looking for a replacement holding bait.
Don't wanna say too much, but keep your eyes out for a new product in the next few months (keep in mind the word SAMPI)
An artificial bait that makes use of currently landfilled fish waste

Anyway, that's my bit
I might get branded as a pro sympathiser - not true; I hate the idea of netting estuaries, and would never be in favour of it. But there has to be a median for some of the other fisheries, if prople disagree - have a think again next time you thread a mulie on your set of gangs

I think we all agree that netting estuaries has to stop....

Netting the oceans a difficult one - I agree it's likely less harmfull overall than netting estuaries..

What I'm thinking back to tho is the BIg hoo haar over east about the slimey mackeral fishery between recs and pro's.

Take into account the netting and add it to the longlining of pelagics and is it any wonder they say oceanic fishstocks world wide are in danger of complete collapse.

As a result - now we have Australia a signatory to some world wide conservation committement to lock up 1/3rd of our waters into marine parks (including our estuaries Hardy and Broke as well as Walpole Nornalup).

Sooo - are there any potential solutions that would be a win win scenario?

I can think of a couple...

Carp is one.

Where they are a huge pest over east, commercial carp fishers electrostun carp in irrigation canals and supply them as cray bait - helping to solve one ecological crisis - is helping with another.

Replacing netted fish or imported raw frozen potentially disease carrying northern hemisphere fish with a ecological pest species.

Maybe the same could be done with rabbits or say feral goats (or camels).

All it requires is to make it viable.

We COULD go to grain based protein baits, although when you look at salinity killing off our rivers you wonder about the wisdom of clearing land of trees to grow grain...

Another cosideration of grain based protein baits as opposed to aquaculture feeds, is grain proteins ability to actually "attract" fish (lobsters).

It's prove thathigh protein grain like Lupin (~26 %- 32% crude protein) is quite capable of making high quality aquaculture feed capable of growing fish in a captive environment.

From the results of the bait trials that I participated in tho.....grain prrotein has a very LOW "attraction" capability with regard to lobsters...in fact some of the grain baits were found to actually LOWER the catch rate when used in conjunction with standard fish baits (E they repelled lobster rather than attracted them).

The crucial thing is in actually attracting the Lobster into the trap and keeping it there - rather than as in aquaculture providing a balanced diet for them to grow long term.

Bit like catching kids - use chocolate if you want to attract them - but healthy stuff like apples and cereal if you want to grow string healthy ones.

So - we come back to "atractiveness" of the bait, combined with win win ecological problem solving.

Fish processing waste is worth investigation except of course that - you have to have fish in the first place - to have watse (which implies exploiting or possibly over exploiting wild fish stocks).

Or - you can have aquaculture processing bye product, except of course incidence of disease is potentially highly transmissable from fish product to fish (as in californian pilchards herpes like virus), and any closed high outut aquaculture production sytem is more likely to be a reservoir of potential undesirable diseases (eg white spot disease in taiwanese aquacultured prawns).

I wouldn't totally disregard poultry as a potential "attractor" bait just yet.

You see Poultry isn't a foreign product for the oceanic food chain system. Theres litterally billions of sea birds that live and nest on iuslands and along our coasts. most are short lived species meaning millions die every year. Just about all of em enter the marine food chain when they do.

Poultry is a legitimate part of the marine food chain and theres likely as much risk from avian diease crossover into fish stocks from seabirds (including penguins) as what there is from chicken processing waste IMHO.

I for one don't know the answer to banning netting of estuaries, without either continuing to import the 20,000 tonnes of frozen raw north sea herring as bait per anum, and dumping it into our oceans along with the inherrant disease risks, or finding some environmentally acceptable alternative.

When you think that skun roo is apparently still used as a holding bait? - white hocks and hides are outlawed, it seems a little crazy to be using a native (protected fauna) animal as bait, while pest introduced species like cats foxes, ravbbits goats camels etc still cause untold environmental damage here in Aus.

'Enviro Bunny Baits' comming soon to a bait freezer near you?

Imagine makin a living shootin rabbits for lobster bait!!

Cheers!

20 Million rabbits per annum. Skun.

Paying 50c ea!

(lets see thats $10 mill per annum...and I sell em at a buck a piece to the cray fishers - thats $10 mill per annum for me!).

Wanted....New bream boat, price no object!

Cheers!

[dan_WA]

uh huh

- but the poultry bait product would be coming from intensive culture where disease is a high risk just like in aquaculture systems. The Asian Chicken cholera is a good example. The Lobster industry (which exports a major percentage of crays to Asia) would surely be very brave to tell their Asian customers that the lobsters were caught using intensively grown chicken (waste) when such markets are very wary of how their foods are produced.

The carp issue is touchy - a victory for our waterways (ie all carp eradicated) would mean the carp fishers are out of a job and the cray industry again without bait - so then it would be in their interests to maintain carp populations, so they can "harvest" them........not a good outcome

Any terrestrial animal is pretty much outlawed as cray bait from a hair point of view

For any attracting bait to work, it has to contain some fish product, aniseed works; but liquorice-flavoured lobster is not attractive

Better off using what we've got more effectively. There will always be fish processing/canning, so will always be waste to utilise.

BTW: just under 2000t of Nth Sea Herring (10% of total) and 0 Californian pilchard were used for cray bait last year

Dan
- sorry - drifting off the netting issue......

0 Californian pilchard were used for cray bait last year

Not surprising, now our own pilchard stocks are recovering. Only small quantities of Pilch (local or imported) were ever used in the cray industry (as a soft attractor bait).

The Bulk of Pilch consumption (imported and local) has always been the South Aus Tuna Farmers.

How much did they use last year? (I haven't looked now for several years...last published info I saw on Lobster industry consumption was WA Fisheries researcher Doc Brian Jones report for WAFIC on disease risks associated with import of frozen bait ~2001).

Avian disease, animal hair, Fish diseases, If the Japanese ever saw the dunnys hangin over the edge of the cliffs at the Abrolhos Isl - they'd be more worried about comunicable human diseases in the crays! IMHO

Speakin of diseases in Fish - I see the Californian spiny Lobsters (panulirus sp) are now affectd bye some myseterious herpes like virus that only kills a particular age class.....

Sound familiar?

If that ever gets here - you can kiss a $600 million export Lobster industry goodbye.

With regard to Cow product (Hair) it's my best guess that eventually a link will be found between common agricultural industry systemic worm drenches (pour on) used on cattle, and BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalytis) Mad Cow disease - and then Human CJD (Cruicefeld Jacob Disease) sp?

Course I could be wrong...but you have to wonder how many people could end up 'mad' first from 'Gelatin' product utilised in imported processed foodstuffs from abroad?.

Things are getting crook when you can't safely eat beef, or crayfish!

Oh yeah, whats replaced the imported nth sea herring as bait???

Cheers!

[Quietachiever]

yeah guy`s
pretty Sad,Matty apparrently the Bycatch was mainly small Mullaway,not sure of %, I will ask some more questions on that.Some local lads had a win last week on that river east of Albany & got the same netters I RAN INTO A WEEK EARLIER,but this time pulled all the nets & burnt them on the bank,then went & hid,a couple of guy`s came back up the river to to put it out & gather up their camp& the boys appeared.Turned out they were a couple of Malaysian meet workers from Katanning.I remember A saying I herd from a mate`May thier balls turn purple & drop off the bastards`sorry to be the bearer of such crap news.

[Bear]

It's amazing the changes our group has made to people. My father has been swearing black and blue he'll still get his fish yada, yada, yada. He came to me the other day in disgust as a Dianella fish shop had under size bream for sale from Albany.

A certain Leederville shop had similar only to get and ear full from him. If I can change his attitude then there is no stopping us. We just have to be persistant.

[Quietachiever]

thats classic Bear!
I heard that bream in perth was $9 a kilo before these guys flooded the market & reduced the price to a measly $4 a kilo& what there 24cm long to top it off one of the main netters here is a millionare already,owns one of the local foreshore motels & nets crabs,cobbler,bream & just about everything that friggin moves.Really this guy could give his licence back if he had any sort of conchense.

[Bear]

Don't suppose someone got pics did they Jamie.

Would love to see the response if the papers got hold of them

[Quietachiever]

I wish!
All my info on catch & delivery came from refridge transport driver,as for the ilegal ones rego`s were taken etc & now my digi camera comes everywhere.